The Hollowing of South Park
by snackysmores
Summary: Based on elements from "South Hollow" and the "Creepy" South Park AUs. Please look up both on tumblr. General warning for Body Horror and Disturbing Imagery
1. Chapter 1

When Stan woke up that morning he felt like acid was gurgling in his stomach, and the backs of his eyes throbbed when he blinked away tears. It felt like he'd been stuck in the same year of school for over a decade. Nothing ever seemed to change for the better. That idea stuck with him and made his shoulders sag as he limped to the bathroom. The door was locked and his sister was hoarsely singing along with Pat Benatar from the shower. Stan said to hell with it for another morning, he didn't need a shower. He kept a spare toothbrush in a drawer by the sink, because while Wendy could buy that he showered less to conserve water, it was a must that he brushed his teeth. Walking downstairs in a jumble he grunted ambivalently at his mother telling him there was fruit and cereal out in the kitchen.

"I told them not to drill out there, and what do you know? We're getting irregular seismic activity now. I told them. I said I told them Sharon, and they should have listened to me," Randy angrily fluffed the newspaper. "Yep, you sure told them," Sharon sighed and Stan hummed while on his way into the kitchen to try and drown out his dad, vigorously brushing his teeth in the sink until his gums burned. "It's serious, Sharon!" Randy blustered like he did every morning over the paper, "South Park has an active volcano and a lot of delicate mineral deposits underground! I'm the geologist here, the expert, and those fat cats didn't give a damn because they don't live here!" Sharon wasn't completely fed up with Randy, just tired like everyone else. Acknowledging her husband she replied, "Yes, you're right. It's really upsetting. The Mayor didn't listen either." She drank her coffee mixed up with Bailey's Irish cream and gossiped, "Probably another backroom deal involved for her. You know she's not from around here." Stan was glad to have left his winter gear by the back door in the kitchen. He threw some fruit into his backpack and dressed over his pajamas, wearing the same tired winter outfit because it was the one of the few warm and familiar things he had in life. He was bounding outside and slamming the back door before his mom could ask if he'd showered, dressed, or eaten properly that day.

Stan crunched his way over the snow toward the bus stop, indignantly hawking a wad of spit at the ground. This was a new habit he couldn't really explain, but the heat of it melted at least some of the snow, and that morning he wished he could melt it all. "Hey dude," Kyle had been standing by the bus stop with the others, but he jogged over to Stan instead of waiting. "Hey dude," Stan replied, offering his first smile of the day. Kyle was another one of the few warm and familiar things in his life. Stan's stomach rumbled audibly as he and Kyle closed the distance to where Cartman and Kenny were standing, causing Kyle to ask, "Have you eaten yet?" Stan shook his head and reached to pull some fruit from his bag, "No, but I've got some. Do you want anything?" Kenny peered into Stan's bag and reached for a banana while Kyle grabbed an orange. "Aren't you going to offer me anything?" Cartman glared. "Since when do you eat fruit that isn't drizzled in chocolate, fatass?" Kyle snickered at his own tired joke, tugging off one of his gloves by his teeth to better peel the orange with his bare hand.

"Fuck you Kyle!" Cartman fumed, further indicting them once Kyle took a slice of orange and feed it to Stan, "I don't want fruit from your fruity ass anyway, you orange-ginger-jersey-Jew smoothie!" Kyle broke off a quarter of orange and held it in Cartman's face, "Just take some. And give one of your powdered donuts to Stan." Cartman snatched the orange in his hand and stuffed it into his mouth like a hamster. Just as Cartman knew that Kyle had secret caches of money on his person for emergencies, Kyle knew that Cartman was always hoarding snacks. If Stan and Kenny hadn't eaten, or if Kyle's blood sugar was lacking, Cartman was a big sugary buoy they could lean on for support with a minimum of whining and bargaining. Kenny silently plucked a powdered donut same as Stan and Kyle, making up a fourth of the container's contents. "Seriously hate you guys..." Cartman grumbled, swallowing the orange he'd been chewing on and taking a tithing of assorted change from Kyle. Stan felt at least a little better than he did when he woke up and sat in the back to get warm.

That pleasant feeling of warmness dissipated once they arrived at school, and he practiced making his mind go numb for another day to get through using his TiVo to teach classes and the ceaseless chatter of his classmates. Stan let his personal bubble down when the half-day bell rang and Kyle ran over to him with bounding energy. "Token passed around a note for a pick-up game at recess, wanna run to the basketball court with me?" Stan checked his phone first and looked up to Kyle's expression of impatience and anticipated disappointment, "I was gonna hang out with Wendy by the tree." Kyle rolled his eyes, "What's so great about that tree?" Stan explained, tapping at his phone for a belated reply that he'd be there, "If she says the tree it means just us. If she said the slide or the swings, she'd be with Bebe or Red and I'd probably be able to duck out. I said I'd be available for her, so that's what I'm going to do." Kyle was jogging in place and began his turn to leave, "Whatever dude, I'll just play with someone else."

Stan was glad for some private time with Wendy, and he was too tired for sports anyway. He ran to meet her under the tree, finding her there waiting. "Hi, Stan." Wendy was clearly in a good mood, hugging him and kissing his cheek. She lifted up his wool cap and checked the status of his oily hair. "You skipped a shower again. Is your family noticing?" Stan shook his head, "No, Shelley still wastes hot water enough for two people. You know most people blame industrial waste, but domestic use is still a large contributor to water pollution. Do I stink though?" Wendy held Stan's collar bashfully, and her expression made his stomach gurgle. Wendy admitted, "Not to me...I think you smell good. Like wood smoke, dirt, and a bit of orange." She kissed just the corner of his lips and Stan felt woozy. His stomach felt like it was at a rolling boil now, and Wendy stepped back noticing the green to his cheeks. "Are you going to throw up?" the way Wendy asked it sounded casual, perhaps even interested. Either she was trying to allay his shame, or she had some kind of morbid fascination with this reflux response of his to her intimacy. He wished it wasn't like this, he felt so badly that even if she accepted his odd condition he just couldn't stop it. He wanted to kiss her, but it almost always followed that he would vomit immediately after. Stan could only nod because that painful acidic feeling he'd felt when he woke up was back and he was doubling over. Wendy stroked his back and pulled a handkerchief from her coat. "It's okay...I've got some water in my bag and we can get the toothbrush from your locker if you do."

Stan spat on the ground and saw black bile in his saliva. He'd never seen that before...He rose back up and tried to play it off, just push it aside from his mind as something benign, kicking at the snow. "I think I'll be okay...My stomach's sort of...Cramping or something though, it hurts." Wendy offered him some water and eased him to sit by the tree, inquiring, "Did you eat breakfast?" Stan mumbled, "Half of an orange and a powdered donut..." Wendy sat next to him and held his arm, "Well that's hardly a balanced breakfast, is it? Don't try to get out of lunch either. You can have some of mine, it'll sit much easier in your stomach than something from the cafeteria." The issue of the cafeteria diet and junk food vending machines was a fierce political battle for Wendy as student council president, who had fatass contrarian Eric Cartman rallying opposition for the sake of cheap, fatty, salty, sugary foods. Wendy considered that if she was going to allow Stan to puke, he shouldn't end up purging lunch in the process. She nuzzled up to her moody boyfriend and turned his chin to bring them face to face. She closed her eyes and kissed him firmly on the lips. Puke was better than the verbal bile other boys inevitably spewed. Stan was compassionate, sensitive, and very obviously in love with her. She loved him as well. It wasn't fair to either of them to stay apart just because Stan couldn't keep his lunch down. All the other girls could call her whatever they wanted for dating such an ungraceful dork, she didn't care.

For Stan's sake she hoped he wouldn't retch, and after a few seconds of enjoying their lips pressed together in the cold for warmth, chances seemed good he wouldn't. When she pulled away and opened her eyes however, the telling expression on Stan's face warned her only too late. She started to move, hoping not to upset him and give him more cause for future apprehension, but he heaved and heaved with an agonized expression on his face, tears forming at the edges of his eyes. She could not stop a mask of revulsion and panic forming on her face as she saw that the bile streaming from Stan's mouth was pitch black. She recoiled and stumbled to her feet, her brain whizzing for an answer when the streaks and chunks of viscous black expulsion over her face and neck started to sizzle and burn, corroding her flesh. The entire school yard heard Wendy's blistering screams of pain and pulled their attention, a mob running to find her clutching at her face and writhing in the snow. Stan covered his mouth with both hands, hysterically numb as burning ichor dripped down his chin, and veins popped in bolts of red around his eyes that brimmed with jet-colored tears.

This horrifying episode was the first of many in the town that would come to be known as South Hollow; a quiet mountain community where paranormal phenomena infected the people like a virus. Stan Marsh was inconsolable in the quarantine he was initially placed in at Hell's Pass hospital. To placate him long enough to get samples of the strange culture in his stomach, they allowed his friend Kyle Broflovski in to sit with him. Stan cried through the afternoon and into the evening with his eyes clasped tight as Kyle held him, confused and afraid. They went through a stack of blue medical towels wiping away his tears. His eyes had gone completely bloodshot when he was admitted, and were now a glossy black that spread from the pupil, to the iris, to the sclera. Kyle didn't know what to say, but when Stan asked if he thought Wendy was okay, he replied with conviction. "Yes, it's a bad burn, but she'll live. There will be scarring, but..." Stan choked and spat into a metal tin the doctor had left before wracking with more sobs against Kyle. "How do you know that?"

Kyle explained, "I saw her sheet, it was easy enough to read." Stan asked again, "But how? You've been with me all day..." Kyle went quiet. He was certain he had seen it. The sheet, Wendy, her parents...Kyle focused his eyes on only Stan; yet he could see more beyond that, beyond this room...With trembling fingers feeling their way blindly over Kyle's face, Stan confirmed the first transmission of the Hollow condition from one victim to another when he felt an unnatural, spongy lump on his best friend's forehead. All of South Park was quarantined that night, and all of its people became specimens in the study of the Hollow condition; a paranormal malady with chaotic, unpredictable disfigurements. Nothing ever changed for the better in South Park. That idea had taken on a new, ominous meaning for Stan, as everything rapidly changed for the worse.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mr. Garrison, I'm only here in your classroom to monitor the children and keep you informed about any sudden changes." Mr. Garrison regarded Dr. Mephesto with some derision for interrupting his 'quiet time' before school began, "So my entire classroom is full of little freakoid monsters, what else is new? You're sure I'm not going to catch it?" The shady old doctor limped to the window by his cane with a lethargic expression on his face, correcting, "No, no, you needn't worry about catching it...We've been cleared to continue conducting business as usual. It's important that we carry on like everything is fine and dandy. With the first few cases we observed escalating severity of the condition when the subject is placed under quarantine and close observation. It's quite astounding really, you see..." Before Mephesto could explain more about it, Garrison interrupted with a loud sigh of relief and a tilt back in his chair, "Oh, thank god! I gotta tell you doc, I really can't have something like that condition keeping me from gettin' laid. I'm a man of needs, you know. Go ahead and tell me about the creepy mutations of my students so I can get back to work."

The doctor returned to the teacher's desk to lay out his notes collaborated on with doctors from Hell's Pass in chronological order. "Vector One: Stan Marsh. He's producing an excess of highly acidic biofluids, with notable reservoirs in his stomach and tear ducts. After a sustained period of lacrimation, the secretion of tears has turned the iris and sclera of both eyes completely black, which has damaged his sight greatly." Dr. Mephesto flipped through pages, ignoring Mr. Garrison's cries of disgust at the pictures. He and everyone else would just have to get used to it. The doctor's own leanings toward unusual genetic mutations led him to think the changes were quite marvelous in their own right. "Our timeline gets fuzzy around here, but the second case happened with either Wendy Testaburger or Kyle Broflovski. Both cases initially suggested the condition being a disease communicable by bodily fluids, but further testing showed no causal link between exposure to the pathogen and subsequent mutation. My current theory is that the condition has spread through a sort of...Sympathetic reaction." Mr. Garrison let out a sardonic laugh, "Well then, it's no wonder none of the adults have it yet." Dr. Mephesto nodded along with a dour smile, "Yes, that may just be the case. Stan lost most of his sight, and the friend he went to for support grew three eyes on his forehead." The morbid poetry of it hardly sounded scientific or medical, but it held true all the same. Mr. Garrison followed up by asking, "So, what happened to Wendy...?"

Stan croaked hoarsely as Kyle tugged him along by his wrist to the bus stop, already watering from his eyes in distress, "I can't go to school, I can't dude...They should just lock me up again." Kyle never relented, full of conviction to seize the day. "We're all in the same boat, Stan! You can't just stay locked up in your room, or in some sketchy laboratory. This might not even be permanent, it could all be forgotten by next week like everything else that happens here." It had never been more obvious how much attention Kyle paid to Stan until four of his five eyes were watching him with concern. Stan mumbled into the neck scarf he had on to hide his frequent effusions of caustic drool, "Can you really forget that you have extra eyes?" Kyle asserted he could, even though it had become uncomfortable to wear his ushanka without the room on his forehead to spare, "I hardly even notice." Kenny looked to his approaching friends with only a demure curiosity, but Cartman lit up ready to rip on his friends. "Hey, Five Eyes & Fries! Get it? Because you have five eyes and Stan burns everything he...Uh..." Eric suddenly felt ill with Kyle's anger directed at him, feeling a surge of heat in his body that made him wipe sweat from his brow. "I thought it was pretty funny..." he muttered, unbuttoning the top button of his collar, "Fuck, it's hot out here." Kyle snapped back to Stan, still craning his head this way or that to look even if he didn't need to, asking, "Did you eat today?" Stan made the assurance that he had, "Yeah, but, it's like I have to eat a lot more to feel full now."

Kyle stood to Stan's back and herded him onto the bus once it had arrived, affecting obliviousness to the shock and awe of their schoolmates. Just as Kyle suspected, most everyone on the bus gave him the same wide berth as usual on his way to the back row of seats, as if he'd always been sprouting extra eyes. "Aggh!" Tweek reacted by ducking and hiding upon being confronted with truth to the rumors that had been going around. Butters turned in his seat and peered over the top of the backrest as the bus got back into motion. "What are you staring at?" Kyle glared and Butters felt a bit light-headed, stumbling through an apology. "I'm sorry Kyle, I just wanted to see if they all blinked at once or not. Do they all see the same thing?" Kyle gave a clipped pair of answers in response: "Yes, they do. And no, they do not." Cartman offered his own explanation, "He's got extras for thermal heat vision, Stan vision, and Jew vision." The fatass slid down in his seat a bit with a chortle, pulling off his hat and wiping more sweat from his brow. Kenny pulled his own right mitten off and cupped his hand over Eric's forehead. "You're burning up, dude." Kenny's infrequent speech was effective in pulling attention, even if it was muffled behind his parka. "Yeah, thanks Nurse Kenny!" Cartman huffed in annoyance, "It's just the damn heater here in the back of the bus...Or it's Kyle's heat vision!" Kyle synchronized five eyes rolling at once to spite Cartman, "Fuck off, you fat, slimy turd." Stan whispered to Kyle, "Is Wendy on the bus...?" Kyle whispered back in the negative, she wasn't there. "Could you...Look?" Stan nudged and Kyle elbowed back, "I'm not using my fourth sight to spy on your girlfriend, you melvin." Stan subtly fumbled with his hand until his wrist was held under Kyle's fingers, "well, tell me if you see her at least..."

Blurry, muted colors in elliptical patterns floated and bounced by in Stan's periphery as Kyle shepherded him to class. Wendy wasn't in homeroom, he couldn't see anything on the board, or if he was writing legibly at all...He tried just tuning everything out, until it muted and faded like his vision. He stayed half-asleep in class like that for a while until a blob of black spit managed to splatter on his notebook. He heard the chorus of "ew"s and "ugh"s and bowed his head in shame, trying not to tear up. "Now children, you have to be understanding of your classmate's predicament. You ought to try and... Sympathize. What if this afflicted you instead?" Butters arched his back and strained his arm reaching his hand up to ask a question, "Well, I don't want it to happen to me! What can I do?" The doctor did his best to explain, "Just stay healthy, and don't worry too much. Stress can accelerate the condition-" Tweek interrupted with a justified yelp of terror, "Stress makes it worse? Oh, Jesus Christ!" Mephesto struggled to maintain order, "Like I said, it's important to remain calm not just for yourself, but for others." It was a good sentiment, but he could tell some of the classmates were harboring some degree of resentment against Stan, who they perceived as being responsible. "In life, you will all go through some changes that make you feel self-conscious and vulnerable, and you ought to get support to deal with those changes. Support each other." Mr. Garrison looked up to the clock impatiently, "Thank you, Dr. Mephesto, for your hippy dippy speech about acceptance. You ought to come back around for sex ed some time." The recess bell chimed and the teacher looked ready to push everyone out by force, "Run along, children, and don't pick on the freaks at recess like the good doctor ordered."

Kyle held a tight grip on Stan's hand, bearing an open scowl on his face as he headed for the exit to the grounds outside. "That quack doctor is right for once: people could stand to be a little more accepting!" Cartman agreed, "Yeah, it's not like you have a third eye in the middle of your forehead or something." Stan drifted at Kyle's side, listening in to the usual squabble. "You asshole! When are you going to consider placing someone else's well-being before your impulse to be a raging dickhead for a cheap laugh?" Cartman wilted quickly, backing down from the argument, looking particularly sluggish. "Yeah, well...You would say that, being a cultural marxist and all...True freedom and equality means ripping on anyone for anything. I'm just gonna lay down in the snow here for a little while. Maybe make a snow angel." Kyle mocked and moved on, "Pretty fat for a snow angel, looks more like a snowman fell over." Cartman mused up at the falling snow while on his back, "Isn't it liberating to speak your mind, Kyle?" the question was left hanging on the cold wind, Kenny staying behind to crouch beside Cartman. The fat boy was basically laying over a bed of powdered ice and he was still sweating like a hog. "You look like you're melting...Maybe you should go back inside to see the nurse..." Cartman waved a hand dismissively, "No, no, I'm fine...I just gotta stay like this awhile. I can't go back into that broiling oven."

Butters intercepted Kyle and Stan, "Hey, fellas! Uh...Would you like to play basketball?" it was fairly obvious the considerate boy was taking the doctor's talk to heart and was actively trying to include the outcasts. "Yeah, sounds good to me, but Stan..." The friend in question shook his head, "Go on Kyle, you know I'm not that big on basketball anyway." Kyle gave Stan's hand a squeeze before pulling away reluctantly, admittedly eager to burn off some stress with physical activity and prove to his friends there was nothing wrong with him. "Alright, Stan..." Kyle lingered, eyes focusing on something out of sight, "By the way, Wendy got here before the bell, and she's sitting under that tree again." Stan stammered in disbelief as Kyle pointed him in the right direction and gave him a shove. His upset stomach made him hunch over, taking great pains in moving one step at a time toward the shape of that gnarled tree.

When he got close enough, the base of the brown tree popped with bright colors of purple, pink, and yellow. "Wendy, I'm so sorry, I..." Stan whipped away from facing her to void his stomach of surging bile over the snow, tears forming in his eyes. A gloved hand settled on his back and started rubbing in circles, "Calm down, Stan." Wendy's voice sounded dry and reedy, but it remained smoothly comforting. "You don't hate me...?" Stan trembled feeling arms wrap around his shoulders. "No, I don't. It was just another accident." Stan knelt in the snow as Wendy draped over him, "You were in so much pain, because of me..." Wendy held him there, leading a bottle of water to his lips for him to drink. "I endured it. You're not the one to blame for your condition, either." Stan let himself get hoisted back to lean on Wendy and the tree, "But if it happens again..." Wendy assured him, "I'll be alright. You could say I've adapted to it..." Stan scarcely remembered that she had developed the condition as well, and had no idea how it had affected her.

"How...?" Wendy closed his question with a kiss, holding Stan as he reflexively tried to pull away, gagging and groaning with concern. "No, don't, I'll-!" Stan ejected a small amount of bile and jerked away, cupping his hands to his face fearing more of those haunting screams. The screams never came however, and as he blinked away tears he could make out Wendy wiping herself clean. "Same as it always was, isn't it? You don't need to worry so much." Stan tentatively reached forward and Wendy caught the intent, taking his hands and leading them to her face. He felt around and had to peel off his gloves to better understand. Her face was covered with some kind of hard, grooved plating, and retractable mandibles hid away her raw lips. Wendy got a bit self-conscious herself and explained, "The doctors explained I'm developing a chitinous exoskeleton. So, naturally, the petty girls are calling me 'bug face'." Wendy laughed it off and tried taking a few more kisses from Stan, who whined and dry-heaved at first, but found he could kiss her lips without emptying more of his stomach. "None of it bothers you...?" Stan had been relying on Kyle all day to put up a wall between him and the people that wanted to heckle him for being mutated.

"It bothers me that they lack empathy for human suffering, but my feelings aren't hurt." Stan was immensely relieved and talked to Wendy about time in quarantine as they held hands and leaned on each other. "I had a dream that I drowned in this black goo, but even after it had filled my lungs and suffocated me I just kept sinking, fully aware that I should be dead..." Stan recounted his first sleep in quarantine, fraught with nightmares. Wendy reflected, "My dream was much more pleasant, I had grown wings and I could fly, wherever I liked." Stan squirmed as Wendy continued to press kisses on his lips, "You're going to chafe my lips, kissing so much..." Wendy tugged up the cloth loosely tied around Stan's neck, "Then you can keep hiding behind your scarf if you don't want your friends to make fun of you for getting kissed so much." Stan wound the scarf around them both as he heard the bell ring. "What were you saying about that book before, the Metamorphosis?" Wendy illuminated Stan on her reading as she often did, "Well, if Gregor's family had just supported him when he was in need the same way he did for them, he might have lived a relatively normal life. Some interpretations of the book suggest he never really turned into a bug; that was just how he thought of himself, and how he thought of the perceptions of others once he lost his value as a provider."

Stan replied with a muted 'oh' like he usually did in response to her reading analyses and it made Wendy laugh. She knew he was listening, that he understood, but he really didn't have much to add, having not read the book himself. If he didn't want to read in his leisure time, she could at least impart the meaningful bits of every book she read to him. Stan was going to ask Wendy if she thought things may go back to normal like Kyle did, but the Hollow condition made a grim reminder of its presence in South Park in short order. On approach to the school, Wendy stifled a gasp seeing men in white coats with snow shovels scooping a discombobulated blob of flesh and limbs into a large ice chest. "What's going on?" Stan tensed, straining to pick through the rush of colors and shapes crashing into view. "It's...I think it's Cartman." Stan could faintly hear Cartman's torpid murmurs of sedated unease, the fat boy seeing his globular form degrading, melting, and losing shape into some wretched indistinct mound. "Oh my God! Cartman!" Kyle and Kenny joined the growing crowd, powerless to do anything. Cartman bubbled and spat as he was shifted into the ice chest, his clothes discarded over the snow with some pale, slurried goo clinging to them. "W-What's going on...? Where's my mom? Kyle? You did this to me, didn't you? It's all your fault, right!? God damn you..!" The boneless flapping of Cartman's liquefying jowls rapidly eroded his speech into sickly, babbling gurgles. Kyle shut all of his eyes tightly and turned away with his face in his hands. From a window of the school building's second floor, Dr. Mephesto quietly observed, and drafted another sheet for another Hollowed child.


End file.
